Nets for assisting a fisherman to land a hooked fish have been long known and have been proposed in a very large number of varieties, shapes and forms. In all of these previous nets, however, insofar as I am informed, there have continued to exist, and have been tolerated, certain inconveniences and problems which have in most cases rendered their use somewhat less than wholly satisfactory and have in many cases been so extremely inconvenient as to induce many fisherman to forego their use in all cases excepting only those where such use is absolutely necessary. Foremost among these problems is size, in that a net construction having a rigid handle and net supporting frame requires space for carrying. They are sometimes carried on the back, sometimes hanging from a creel in the case of trout fishermen, or in the case of boat fishermen, they are often carried loose in the boat, are many times under foot and in the way when not needed and often fouled with other gear when they are needed. Often, too, such nets when carried on a fisherman's back or adjacent his creel may become engaged by brush or low tree branches which may exist along a river bank, if such fisherman is working along the shore either on the bank or in the river.
In an attempt to remedy this recognized difficulty, many collapsible fishing nets have been proposed, all of them directed in one way or another to providing collapsibility for the net in question, but these have often been so extremely complicated as to defeat the main purpose, namely convenience, for which they were designed.
Accordingly, the objects of the invention include:
1. To provide a collapsible fishing net of the manually handled type which will automatically collapse by resilient means into a compact structure and which will remain in such collapsed condition to enable said net to be easily carried in a jacket pocket or in a creel for maximum convenience.
2. To provide a fishing net, as aforesaid, in which said collapsing will be automatic in response to a resilience built into such net.
3. To provide a fishing net, as aforesaid, which may be grasped on its handle by the user and the manual compression of the handle by such simple act of grasping same will forthwith effect a transition of the net from storage condition to use condition.
4. To provide a fishing net, as aforesaid, which will be of very simple construction in order that it will be both economical to manufacture and reliable to use.
5. To provide a fishing net, as aforesaid, which in collapsed condition can easily go into the fisherman's jacket pocket or into his creel or which can be hung from his shoulder as desired.
6. To provide a fish net, as aforesaid, which will be sufficiently simple in construction to be economical in manufacture and which will also be of a sufficiently rugged construction as to provide for safe and reliable use under the most adverse fishing conditions, whether trout fishing, stream fishing, ocean fishing or otherwise.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons acquainted with apparatus of the general type upon reading the following disclosure and inspection of the accompanying drawings.